Let there be Light
It was fairly murky at the annual awards dinner of the Association of British Theatre Technicians. I asked lighting wizard Paule Constable if she could do anything about this and she suggested a flood of white light and candles on the tables.
But nothing happened. Just as well, perhaps, as comedian Arthur Smith, trotting out some comfortingly familiar jokes in his guest spot (actually, there was no spot, just a little light spill and lots of shadow), observed that this was one of the worst-dressed awards ceremonies he had ever been to.
What was the worst possible news for any technical worker in the theatre, wondered Arthur? “Ken Dodd’s here next week. He’s doing a three week season but it’s all in the one show.”
He also had a gag he should pass on to Neil LaBute, author of Fat Pig: “One out of three Americans weighs as much as the other two.” And then he went too far. He said that he personally kept fit by entering the Marathon; but he got chocolate peanuts all over his willy.
So he won us all round at the end, though personally I preferred the blindingly unfunny speeches about widgets, riggers and curious inventions involving mastic, sealants, pulleys and black drapes. Most of the winners, too, were blessedly inarticulate, so their speeches were commendably short, not to say monosyllabic.
The dinner was held in the Church House Conference Centre in Westminster, just next to the Abbey in Dean’s Court. This is the administrative headquarters of the Church of England, and the place was used for sessions of both Houses of Parliament during the war. The ABTT members should have stayed on to give the place an acoustic and lighting makeover.
Instead we whizzed happily through to the inaugural Knight of Illumination Awards sponsored by Clay Paky and judged by an array of guest professionals including myself, Louise Levene of the Sunday Telegraph and David Benedict of Variety.
And the lucky winners in the theatre section were: Lucy Carter for Chroma at the Royal Opera House; Paul Pyant for Minotaur, also at the ROH; Paule Constable for Saint Joan at the National; and Neil Austin for Parade at the Donmar Warehouse.
These choices seemed to be popular. One of the great technical figures of the television studio, John Watts, was honoured with a special award, although when it was declared that his best known work was documented in a publication called Lights and Sound International, I’m afraid my friend and colleague Louise Levene got a fit of the giggles and had to leave the room.
She was finally overcome by all this talk of widgets and pulleys and was immune to any more technical information. Where’s the magic? And where, incidentally, in the enveloping gloom, was my glazed lemon tart with raspberry sorbet in a drizzle of something or other?
